Papa looked surprised. “Why, how did you guess, Rose?” he asked. “That is just what it is.” And he beckoned to Eliza, Rose’s own old nurse, who came into the room with a tiny bundle in her arms. And there, wrapped in soft flannel, was the pinkest, prettiest, cunningest little baby you ever saw!
“Oh, Papa!” cried Rose, clapping her hands. “It wasn’t a dream after all. I did collect the pieces. Oh, I am so glad!”
Papa looked puzzled, but Rose had no time now to explain about the Fairy Queen. She was too busy examining the little pink bundle to see if it was all there as she had planned. Yes, there were the eyes and ears, the little hands and nails, all quite evenly matched. This was no crooked, carelessly patched baby, this little sister of Rose’s. The fairies had smoothed out all the pieces and made them beautiful, and, as the Queen had promised, there was not one seam to show how it had been done. Oh, how proud Rose was of the dear little nose and the pink mouth! Suddenly her face clouded. The baby had opened its pink mouth wide to let out a babyish howl, and Rose saw a dreadful sight. There was not a single tooth there!
“Oh, oh!” cried Rose, “I forgot her teeth. And there was my comb lying on the bureau conveniently all the time. Oh, how careless I was! Poor little Sister!” and she burst out crying.
Nurse and Papa assured Rose that it was quite fashionable for a baby to be toothless at first; that the little sister’s teeth would come soon enough. But Rose could not believe it. She felt sure that she had spoiled the baby, who would never be quite finished like other children. It was only when, some months later, Papa and Nurse turned out to be right and Rose felt the little hard teeth pushing through the baby’s gums that she became quite happy and relieved.
“I think that this was the Fairy’s doings, too!” said Rose. And indeed, that did not seem more wonderful than the fact which Rose could never explain,—that no one had missed the nose of the teakettle, nor the neck of Mamma’s white vase, nor any of the other things which Rose had collected to piece the baby. For, like the clock’s hands and face, they were all in place as usual the very next morning after that exciting night. But, as Aunt Claire said, of course it is useless trying to explain anything which has to do with the fairies. Is it not so?
CHAPTER XII
THE ALARM
ONE day Captain Prout said to Kenneth, “How’d ye like to go out with me to-morrow morning to catch bait for my lobster traps? We’ll have to start early,—right early for a little city feller like you. What do you say to four o’clock?”
“Oh, I can get up at four o’clock just as easily as at seven,” said Kenneth proudly; “of course I will go with you, Captain Prout.”
The Captain chuckled. “’Tain’t so easy as you think, to git up at sunrise, when you ain’t used to it,” he said; “but you kin set an alarm, I guess. You ask your father, an’ if he says you can go, I’ll take you off from the beach in my boat to-morrow morning at four-fifteen; that is, pervided you’re there, Sonny.”